Tinariwen
Tassili

THE REVIEW

Tinariwen, literally "the deserts," "the solitudes," also refers to the demons that live in those God-forsaken places ("Tuareg" means precisely this), a risky word to pronounce.

The members form the band after meeting in Gaddafi's Libyan training camps. They then abandon their rifles to take up instruments, and this is the power of music that achieves its total perfection.

And the sound defeats the silence, the silence of the desert, a hostile place for most, yet where the Tuaregs have learned to "navigate" for millennia.

They are an oppressed and persecuted people, divided into still nomadic tribes, the very existence of the band is a cultural revolution and the music that emerges is steeped in Saharan tradition infused with rock influences.

A desert blues with psychedelic guitars.

Notice, they play instruments of no particular prestige, unlike the big "rockstars" of the moment, yet they have performed at the most important international festivals (especially Glastonbury, Coachella, and Womad), Santana strongly wanted them with him in Montreux, and they also opened for The Rolling Stones in Dublin.

So they are not newcomers and in fact, they have received praise, not only from critics but also from internationally renowned colleagues such as Thom Yorke, Chris Martin, and Damon Albarn; additionally, Justin Adams, of Robert Plant's Strange Sensation, has produced some of their albums.

"Tassili" is their fifth album, but it is also a fascinating place: rocks and sand make it look almost like a lunar landscape; it is the place where the Tamashek guerrillas took refuge during the revolt against the Mali regime.

And it is precisely in this place that Tinariwen decided to bring their music, abandoning the comforts of modern recording studios to record the album in their natural environment, where caves molded by the wind possess the right acoustic body to embrace their compositions.

I recommend taking a look at the documentary of the sessions that came out of it.

This album features the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, guitar wizard Nels Cline (Wilco), and duo Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone (respectively vocals and guitar of Tv On the Radio).

Tinariwen claim an identity, they claim freedom; they sing in a language whose existence Muslims deny. They want to break free from the cultural isolation these nomadic populations suffer and no longer want to be called Berberi ("barbarians," who did not speak Latin), but Imazighen, free men.